Page 44 of The Island Girls

The gorge walk proved to be an even bigger hit with Paul than had the beach, and Rebekah was not surprised. She never failed to be amazing by the clarity of the waters, the colour of the most pristine Ceylon sapphire. They crashed and foamed relentlessly into the gorge, worn away by the same action over millennia, oblivious to the changes that humanity wrought on the world around the island. She had spotted turtles floating at the mouth of the gorge and they’d leant over the railings to watch them dive and disappear into the deep. Then, as they stood to admire the beauty of the unspoilt beach that swept away into the far distance, they spotted a pod of dolphins surfing in the waves.

That night, she dreamed of surfing with dolphins, and swimming in the peaceful silence of the sparkling waters beneath the waves, where the sunlight shone through the water like raining diamonds. When she woke in the cool of the dawn, a flock of kookaburras laughed at the morning, and she turned to Paul’s sleeping face, wishing he’d been awake to hear it. There would be others. But they were only here for a month, and then they’d be back in England, on Brownsea, which she loved, and he in London, which she knew he was beginning to love less.Rebekah wished she could bottle the glorious nature of Australia and take a little home, to pour into the bath on a cold winter’s night and bring herself back here.

She chuckled at the idea but couldn’t lose the feeling that by gaining the joy of living on Brownsea – and ultimately meeting Paul – she’d lost so much by leaving behind the Australian landscape and weather that she loved so much. She wouldn’t change anything, she realised, but there was an acceptance of loss to be considered even in what she had gained.

The next morning at breakfast, Paul and Rebekah showed her mum all the documents in the folder that they’d found on Peggy.

‘Are you allowed to have these with you?’ Helen asked. ‘Shouldn’t they be in some official records somewhere?’

‘By rights they should be, yes, but where we found them, they had no business being. So nobody is missing them. In time, I expect I’ll get them sent to the British Airways archivist, if they think it worthwhile. But we’re not hurting anyone by having them here. And besides, the whole problem is that these papers really don’t tell us anything,’ Paul explained.

‘We want to give the letter to Darrell Taylor, Mum. It was written for him – and was meant to be given to him on Peggy’s death, which it seemed she imagined was going to occur during the war. So, now she’s gone, we’re doing the right thing by delivering it. And I’m hopeful he might have some clues about exactly what she got up to during the war, and whether they had any relationship afterwards.’

‘Whatever it was she did, you can bet she did it with gumption,’ said Helen, as she got up to answer the phone.

She came back a few moments later looking stunned.

‘It’s for you Rebekah – a Mr Darrell Taylor,’ she said with meaning, and Rebekah had to stop herself running to the phone.

When she came back to the others, she was glowing.

‘He wants to meet us. He was shocked, but he remembers Peggy very well, and is interested to read the letter. We’re invited to go there today for morning tea.’

22

POOLE – MAY 1941

Charlie had half undressed himself for bed, but had ended up lying on his back, hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling where, by some strange work of magic in his mind, he could see the face of Peggy Symonds. He had a bubbling feeling in his chest and a sensation on his face that seemed to come from his ancient past. He was smiling. Not just trying to smile, or putting on a smile for effect, or smiling to be polite. He was smiling because he felt happy.

For the last six weeks, a delightful change had come into his life and he had begun to form a strong friendship with Peggy.

He had always been fond of her and had often complimented her on the expertise with which she handled the launch, and she’d accepted his praise as any other colleague would. But one day, she seemed to be smiling so sweetly, and chatting so freely with him that he’d dared to compliment her on how pretty she was looking. No one could have been more surprised than Charlie when she responded by giving him a coy smile and thanking him. Charlie had heard that she was already firmly attached to one of the Australian airmen, but she seemed very open to spending more time with him.

And so they had begun to spend some time sharing drinks together, and he would occasionally walk her home. She had asked him if he might be going to the dance one Saturday night and with all his soul, he’d wished he didn’t have this stupid limp, but he couldn’t possibly go dancing. He would look a fool, and make a fool of Peggy too, which was worse.

Instead, he suggested they go for a picnic, and she had the most wonderful idea of taking her dad’s dinghy out across the harbour.

As he lay there that night thinking of the day he had spent with Peggy, he was in awe of the way his heart seemed to have made room for her. His dead wife still had her place in his soul, but now there seemed to be another space just the right size for Peggy to fill. The idea of Peggy and her lovely smile, her bouncy, blonde curls and her merry laugh filled him with a joy he could not explain. He wondered if he should be prepared to explain his feelings to his wife. What would she think of him? But it was now almost exactly a year since the day she had died and the rough journey that grief had taken him on, though a steep and winding path, seemed to be dwindling now. He shook away his darker thoughts and took himself back to the happy moments of this picnic day.

They went ashore on the little beach near the ruined pottery on Brownsea Island – risking both the wrath of Mrs Bonham-Christie who had banned all visitors, as well as that of the army that patrolled there, manning the bomb decoy site. They drank a flask of hot tea and ate the oatmeal and syrup biscuits she’d made from a recipe she said she had learnt of lately from a friend. He became jittery about them being caught, and he was sure that Peggy had noticed his unease though she said nothing of it. They left and motored across to Arne instead. She’d suggested a walk, and he went for a little way before tiring with his limp, so they’d lain in the late spring sunshine on theheather, watching and listening for the many different birds that flew overhead and hopped around the heathland.

And when it was time to go home, he’d sat in the stern of the dinghy and taken the tiller of the Seagull engine and watched her as she sat in the bow, her blonde curls blowing in the breeze and her fingers trailing in the water. And he had started to hope that, perhaps, she could be his.

Today was Sunday, and tomorrow they would be working again together on the launches, and perhaps driving up to the hotel. He didn’t mind what the work entailed, he realised, as long as he could be with Peggy.

As he settled to sleep that Sunday night, Charlie worked hard to scare off the visions of war that troubled his mind and was determined instead to think on the pretty face of Peggy Symonds.

‘Thanks for coming in, Peggy. I’ve told Patricia that you won’t be on the launch as planned this morning as we have some paperwork to catch up with,’ explained Fletcher, after calling her into the back office on her arrival at the harbour master’s office the next morning.

‘So, it’s been over a month and I know you’ve been spending a lot more time with Charlie than just at work. Do you have anything to share with me?’ Fletcher asked, pouring coffee for himself and offering one to Peggy too.

‘I think there might be something in the claim that he is not English, and he openly admits to spending some time on the continent before the war. He can’t – or won’t – give me any details about where he is really from. He says he had a wife and daughter who died in an air raid, but he won’t say where. I tendto believe him, though something isn’t quite right. It could have been London, or almost anywhere else in Europe, but he won’t give me any details. He is still grieving, but he keeps his heart to himself. I’m a little worried that he might be falling for me, if I’m honest. My mother is a cousin to his landlady, and all she could learn is that he is an honest, polite, hard-working young man. He is making Mrs Rogers’ life easier just by being there with her sons away,’ Peggy reported.

‘Well, you’ll need to keep trying. You may have to get very close to him – see if you can get him to slip up and mention his late wife’s name. You’ll have to work out how to extricate yourself from the friendship you’ve developed with him, in your own way, when the time comes,’ Fletcher said, as if this was the most matter-of-fact thing in the world. But Peggy’s heart was breaking over the rift she knew was already developing between her and Darrell.

After the working day was over, and Peggy had eaten dinner with her family, they’d all gone out to enjoy the warm, light evening with a walk along the quay, which had, inevitably, led them into the Antelope for a drink.

The delights of being able to enjoy the evening in daylight and without the hassles of blackout, brought the community together in a way that was not too dissimilar to their past lives, back before the war began. All except for the masses of uniforms everywhere, of course. The pubs all along the quay were busy with locals and visiting soldiers, sailors, and airmen alike and all were relaxing in the warm, evening air.

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